A collection of essays from one of my favorite culture
writers. A wonderful overview of Sondheim in here, as well as an amusingly
out-of-date piece on “quality TV” that suggests no TV series can ever stand as
a true classic given that no one ever revisits an entire series the way they do
a great novel or film. In today’s streaming and Peak TV world, that is simply
no longer true.

Career of Evil –
Robert Galbraith

The third in JK Rowling’s mystery series, the goriest,
page-turniest, most personal one to date. Love that she has an ongoing mystery
series going. It’s a good fit for her talents.

Fun Home: A Family
Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel

Having listened to the cast album of the musical based on
this graphic novel, reading it expanded and clarified some of the story,
themes, and characters. A wonderful, personal, heart-breaking tale that never
wallows in sentimentality.

Unfaithful Music and
Disappearing Ink – Elvis Costello

An idiosyncratic, time-hopping, detail-stuffed musical
memoir. I remain undecided if a firmer editorial hand would have made it better
or snuffed out the flame of its shaggy charm.

Ms. Marvel, Vols 1-3
– G. Willow Wilson

Fun, feminist comics about a young Muslim teen in Jersey
City navigating becoming a superhero.

Homicide: A Year on
the Killing Streets – David Simon

Exhaustively, devastatingly reported year in the life of the
Homicide detectives in Baltimore. A dense, challenging read but a lively,
passionately told one. One of those books that really opens a window on a world
you thought you knew (here, from TV), but did not.

The Song Machine:
Inside the Hit Factory – John Seabrook

A look at how pop hits are manufactured today that was
fascinating, but that also felt like, having read excerpts and distillations of
the book in two magazines, maybe worked better as a long-form article than a
book.

The Children Act –
Ian McEwan

Minor McEwan, but still worth reading. A small story about a
judge whose marriage is in jeopardy and the legal case that commands her attention
during this personal crisis. Explores the ethics of denying medical treatment
for religious reasons with intelligence and fairness, but very clearly.

Freedom – Jonathan
Franzen

A spellbinding novel about a family and its splintering told
with great attention to detail and character. Franzen is a treasure.

Between the World and
Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

A searing and absolutely riveting personal essay on race and
America told as if written as a letter to Coates’ son. The only book I read
this year that I *know* I will read again. And again.

King attempts to come up with his own series of novels
featuring the same detective, as so many have before him and as Rowling has
been doing so successfully for the last few tears, but here in his second
outing he takes over half the book before actually remembering to, you know,
bring the detective back. Still, he manages to make it work, and to craft a
wonderfully suspenseful ending.

A hackles-raising accounting of cases where children died
because their parents denied medical care for religious reasons and the ongoing
efforts to prevent similar tragedies.

Being Mortal: Medicine
and What Matters in the End – Atul Gawande

A beautiful, deeply moving, immensely educational and
passionate book about how we treat the elderly in this country, both in their
later years and as they die. Coates notwithstanding, maybe the best book I read
all year.

Paper Towns – John
Green

Solid YA from the The Fault
of Our Stars author that suffers in comparison to its more famous kin.
Still, this is a compassionate, nicely told story about the search for identity
in adolescence.

Life of Pi –
Martin Yann

One of those books where you read it and say “Ah – now I get
the hype.” A beautiful, lyrical mediation on faith.

Revival – Stephen
King

Old school-flavored King. The ending was a little familiar
and disappointing, but the journey there was fascinating and not a retread of
prior stories or characters.

On Immunity: An
Inoculation – Eula Biss

A beautiful little book on the history and metaphysical
implications of vaccination. A bit pretentious, but sometimes that works just
fine.

Difficult Men: Behind
the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men
and Breaking Bad – Brett Martin

An engrossing look behind the scenes of some of the best TV
of the past decade.

Station Eleven –
Emily St. John Mandel

A lyrical, quiet novel about the end of the world.
Beautiful.

The Best American
Magazine Writing 2014

A pleasure every year. I *love* these collections.

Cloud Atlas –
David Mitchell

A grand and successful literary experiment that tells
connected stories over eons. A great novel that has me itching to read more
Mitchell.

Sondheim on Music
– Mark Eden Horowitz

I can’t pretend to have understood a ton of this deeply
technical series of interviews with Sondheim on the musicology behind his
scores, but I found it utterly fascinating all the same.